Irene Fosi’s The Plural City: Urban Spaces and Foreign Communities, viewed in conjunction with Dr. McPhee’s Envisioning Baroque Rome project and Dr. Leone’s Roma: Caput Mundi project, provide a look into how Rome grew through the 14-17th Centuries, encapsulating the development in Baroque design, Roman buildings, and Italian populations.
Fosi discusses how Rome was a diverse state under the papal monarchy and that early Rome was a melting pot for different inhabitants, although all were not equal. Foreigners shaped the urban fabric of Rome because of the state’s importance as a cultural and political power. But religious, regional, and linguistic differences marginalized foreigners in the state. This did not deter the influx of foreigners to the state as, with time, compromises were made about the identity of foreigners, and social hubs emerged for localized populations in the city. However, much is still unknown about the identity of foreigners in the state, and total integration in the state was hardly ever achieved.
Dr. Leone’s project looks at how Rome developed in the Renaissance and Baroque periods while providing urban context by mapping various buildings through time. Fosi mentions how “beneath the splendid surface of new buildings and urban interventions, such as Bernini’s St. Peter’s Piazza, the city was a mess of unfinished projects and filth” (Fosi 171). Through Dr. Leone’s project, one can visualize how the urban matrix of the city must have changed as churches, houses, villas, palaces, fountains, streets, ancient buildings, and others were built as the city became ‘the capital of the world.’
Briefly mentioning Dr. McPhee’s project, one can take in the splendor of Baroque architecture in a POV of Rome, almost like a first-person shooter video game. Thus, the digital projects work well with materials this week to immerse oneself into Baroque Rome.